Hoping in Vain for Alien Life

Astrobiologists and SETI advocates
have little more than blind hope
that life will be found beyond Earth

Silence can be data. The lack of alien signals or confirmed signs of life on planets and moons says something. Are we alone? It’s impossible to know without checking everywhere in the universe, but astrobiologists and SETI advocates know that, statistically, there should have been some indications of life by now in the places we have checked. Here are some reactions from the believers clinging to hope in the face of discouraging evidence.

In the search for life on exoplanets, finding nothing is something too (ETH Zurich, 7 April 2025). This press release asks the question, “What if humanity’s search for life on other planets returns no hits?” Dr Daniel Angerhausen is cautioning researchers about results expected from the upcoming international Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) mission led by ETH.

“It’s not just about how many planets we observe – it’s about asking the right questions and how confident we can be in seeing or not seeing what we’re searching for,” says Angerhausen. “If we’re not careful and are overconfident in our abilities to identify life, even a large survey could lead to misleading results.“

He explains that a null result after observing 40 to 80 exoplanets for signs of life could yield 10% to 20% upper limit on the probability life exists out there, but uncertainties and biases could further reduce the calculation. “A single positive detection would change everything,” says Angerhausen, “but even if we don’t find life, we’ll be able to quantify how rare – or common – planets with detectable biosignatures really might be.” Without any positive detection, even the upper limits are dubious.

What if we find nothing in our search for life beyond Earth? (SETI Institute, 7 April 2025). This is the SETI Institute’s take on the ETH research discussed above.

What if we spend decades building advanced telescopes to search for life on other planets and come up empty-handed? A recent study led by ETH Zurich researchers including corresponding author and SETI Institute affiliate, Dr. Daniel Angerhausen, tackled this question, exploring what we can learn about life in the universe—even if we don’t detect signs of life or habitability. Using advanced statistical modeling, the research team sought to explore how many exoplanets scientists should observe and understand before declaring that life beyond Earth is either common or rare.

The “challenge of null results,” this article says, still leaves hope that life could exist on alien worlds. “This work serves as a reminder that science isn’t just about finding answers—it’s also about asking the right questions and embracing uncertainty as part of the journey.” While the flavor of both press releases keeps some hope alive, the fact that these two institutes are asking “what if” questions about the ongoing silence seems to indicate a degree of worry. There comes a point statistically where embracing uncertainty becomes illogical, contrary to the goals of science.

Saturn’s moon Titan could harbor life, but only a tiny amount, study finds (University of Arizona News, 7 April 2025). Searches for the amino acid glycine as a proxy for life on Titan have been discouraging. “We conclude that Titan’s uniquely rich organic inventory may not in fact be available to play the role in the moon’s habitability to the extent one might intuitively think,” a researcher admitted. See my article about astrobiology at Titan at Evolution News, 29 July 2024.

Intelligent aliens would need a power supply to jump-start their civilization — would they require fossil fuels? (Live Science, 24 March 2025). The more constraints on what ET’s would need to thrive, the lower the probability of their existence. Space aliens would be unlikely to survive on solar or wind power.

Alien life could survive on Earth-like planets circling dead stars, study suggests (Space.com, 19 March 2025). The perhapsimaybecouldness index has redlined in this article speculating about life around white dwarf stars. “White dwarfs may be stellar corpses, but that doesn’t mean that everything around them has to be lifeless,” Robert Lea suggests. This is another sign of desperation. It depends on evolution, too: the notion that life will emerge if it has seven billion years before the star blinks out and the vanishing habitable zone shrinks to nothing.

Watch Illustra Media’s film for a dose of reality.

I want to believe — but yet another massive search for alien technosignatures just turned up nothing (Space.com, 19 Feb 2025). Astrophysicist Paul Sutter wants to keep hope alive, but he knows it’s awfully quiet out there. Another massive search for radio signals over much of the northern hemisphere turned up nothing.

A formula for life? New model calculates chances of intelligent beings in our universe and beyond (Royal Astronomical Society via Phys.org, 12 Nov 2024). This proposed revision to the Drake Equation takes into account the magnitude of dark energy. This puts some brakes on SETI hopes: “the value of dark energy density we observe in our universe is not the one that would maximize the chances of life, according to the model.”

Why haven’t we found intelligent alien civilizations? There may be a ‘universal limit to technological development’ (Space.com, 9 Oct 2024). This proposed answer to the ‘Fermi Paradox’ (‘If life is plentiful, where are they?’) suggests that technology has an upper limit. This is another wild speculation indicating desperation with the silence. Even worse, it reduces the hope for finding ETI.

Yes, it is awfully quiet to evolutionists who expect life to “emerge” on other planets like they believe it did here. One positive finding of a microbe on Mars or an intelligent signal from a distant star could change the gloomy looks on astrobiologists’ faces, for sure, but the probability continues to shrink. Silence is data.

Maybe this is the one and only planet where God created intelligent life. That seems to be the tenor of Biblical revelation. In Deuteronomy 4:32, Moses asked the children of Israel about their experiences at Mt Sinai 40 years earlier:

For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard.

The expected answer is negative. This would have been a perfect opportunity for God to reveal the existence of alien life, but He did not. Nowhere in Scripture is there an indication that God created other sentient beings in His image beyond Earth; I checked once, reading through the whole Bible looking for clues. I found none. It looks like His work among human beings on our planet was a one-off deal.*

To Bible believers, the silence is data in another sense. It means that God has a special place in His heart for people. Read this, but also this.

*Is such a belief reasonable given the vast number of stars in the universe? Read chapter 1 of Spacecraft Earth: A Guide for Passengers.